The U.N. Security Council is ready to expand its current ‘oil-for-food’ deal with Iraq as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan flies into Baghdad Friday in an effort to head off a growing weapons dispute.

Diplomats in the 15-nation Council have tried to separate the issue of the ‘oil-for-food’ programme, which currently exempts Iraq from U.N. sanctions to sell two billion dollars of oil every six months to buy humanitarian goods, from the ongoing conflict. But most U.N. officials are hopeful that the strong support in the Security Council to allow the deal to be expanded over the next six-month phase to allow for 5.2 billion dollars in oil sales will help boost prospects for peace during Annan’s visit.

Similarly, the Council postponed a presentation, scheduled for Thursday, by the chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, Richard Butler – whose leadership of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) has drawn accusations of bias from Baghdad. U.S. President Bill Clinton this week threatened military action against Iraq if it does not promptly allow full UNSCOM access to eight presidential sites.

“We are hoping to discuss all issues, humanitarian and disarmament, once the secretary-general returns from his trip,” one African diplomat told IPS. “That will be the best time to deal with all of the matters concerning Iraq at once.”

“The priority should be given to the secretary-general,” added Security Council President Denis Dangue Rewaka of Gabon in explaining Butler’s absence.

Most of the nations present on the Council are clearly hoping to raise the prospects of success for Annan’s eleventh-hour attempt to end the standoff over UNSCOM before a possible U.S. attack. As a result, the Council recently picked up its pace to approve the expanded oil-for-food deal, which sources say is ready for unanimous approval.

Nevertheless, that plan – although it would provide more than three billion dollars in aid revenue for Iraq, including more than one billion dollars to rebuild infrastructure decayed after seven years of U.N. sanctions – may not win Baghdad’s approval.

Nizar Hamdoon, Iraq’s U.N. ambassador, has complained that the programme, which would expand U.N. oversight of everything from repair of sanitation and roads to projects for dams, could violate Iraqi sovereignty.

Iraq in particular has objected to parts of the plan which would repair infrastructure in the northern, semi-autonomous Kurdish region — where two major Kurdish parties have clashed with each other and with Saddam Hussein’s government as recently as 1996.

U.N. officials have been unable to determine whether Iraq can even pump enough oil, given the disrepair of its pipelines, to sell 5.2 billion dollars’ worth in 180 days. “Can they pump 1.8 million dollars’ worth of oil each day? Or 2.5 million dollars a day? It remains to be seen,” one senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said recently.

The official added that there would be the need for “some repair and rehabilitation” of Iraq’s oil-production facilities. But U.N. oversight of Iraq’s crucial oil industry has led some observers to describe the oil-for-food deal, as one diplomat said to The Financial Times, as “the most intrusive, most controlling, strict humanitarian programme in existence.”

However, the deal at least enjoys the support of the United States, which has been considerably more cautious about the diplomatic initiative launched by Annan to resolve the weapons standoff.

The progress of the Council’s oil-for-food resolution has stood in marked contrast to the division over a possible military strike against Iraq, possibly as early as next week.

Annan, who left for Paris Thursday enroute to Baghdad, told reporters his trip would not be an easy mission, “because we have had a rather difficult relationship with the government of Iraq and with President Saddam Hussein. There is a great deal of suspicion on both sides.”

However, the secretary-general disputed media accounts that Clinton, in a phone conversation with Annan, allegedly told him not to “jam him” into a poor diplomatic position.

“We had a very contstructive and useful discussion,” Annan said of his talk with Clinton, adding that he was departing with “the full understanding of the Council.”

Richardson Thursday emphasised U.S. support for Annan’s trip, but repeated Washington’s position in recent days that it has “the right to oppose a potential agreement that is inconsistent with Security Council resolutions and our own national interests.”

Clinton has drawn attention to Baghdad’s possession of biological and chemical weapons to justify the need for an attack.

A Washington-based disarmament group, the Nuclear Control Institute, also released a report warning that “it is prudent to assume that there is a small, well-concealed nuclear weapons programme in Iraq, possibly with fully developed components suitable for rapid assembly into one or more workable weapons.”

“The danger of Iraq having nuclear weapons or being very close to having them is still quite real,” said Paul Leventhal, the institute’s president. “Today, we must be concerned that Saddam is again trying to divert attention from a small but deadly remnant of his nuclear programme: the actual weapons components that have never been found and his scientists, who remain in place.”